Create Sustainability

Personal responsibility and respect are fundamental values

Damanhur is a sustainable community of 600 citizens who believe that our planet should be respected and protected. Damanhur's ecological vision, beyond cultivating respect for nature, is also a way to reawaken the awareness of how we as human beings are deeply united with every element of life around us. The base of our community experience exists in a network of ethical, cultural and spiritual values. These values create the foundation of an economic system that both supports the citizens of Damanhur and serves as a local resource through supply chains that allow for the circulation of wealth among local business activities.To formalize a deep relationship with nature and all its forces, citizens of Damanhur typically choose to call themselves with names of animals, plants and nature spirits in everyday life. So, you could stroll around Damanhur and meet an elderly gentleman whose name is Fringuello Papiro (Finch Papyrus), or a young woman named Gau Erba (Cow Grass), or you could get to know a nice fellow whose name is Tritone Crisantemo (Triton Chrysanthemum).At Damanhur, even the concept of peace is related to global sustainability. Peace is not only seen as the absence of conflict but also as creating the conditions for well-being in all areas of the world through valuing local resources, so that all peoples may live on their own lands, in happiness and in harmony with the ecosystem around them, without depending on outside resources. As a result of all the strides made at Damanhur toward global sustainability in the past 40 years, the Global Human Settlements Forum of the United Nations (UN) gave Damanhur an award in 2005 as a model of a sustainable society.